Kalevan kirkko

The Kaleva church is located in the eastern outskirts of Tampere, Finland's second-largest city. The center of Tampere (between Hameenpuisto park and the Tammerkoski rapids) feels more urban than most of Helsinki, but Kaleva and other surrounding districts are not densely-built. The church is in the center of a wedge-shaped park defined by Teiskontie and Sammonkatu.

The church was designed by Reima and Raili Pietilä and was completed in 1966. Like a Gothic cathedral, its walls consist only of structural ribs separated by glazing. Here the ribs are concrete planes that have been "folded" for rigidity. The exterior of the concrete is clad in white tiles, while the interior has a rough texture.

The Pietiläs' work is figural and complex. In their two other buildings that I've been to - Dipoli in Espoo and the Metso library in Tampere - their romanticism produced somewhat chaotic interiors. The Kaleva church is equally sculptural but its interior space is comprehensibly organized.

The ceiling consists of additional concrete ribs clad with steel acoustic baffles.

Interior furnishings also consist of faceted planes. The pulpit and the reflector above it, visible in the photo of the nave, are of board-formed concrete. (Almost all concrete in Finland is board-formed, but in Kaleva church all surfaces except these two are slide-cast.) Handrails, pews, the choir seating which cascades down from the organ, and the 16m organ itself are made from Finnish pine that has been similarly "folded." The correspondence between massing and detail contributes to the cohensiveness of the building.

Detailing of less glamorous aspects of the building was also carefully done. Air is supplied from floor registers that follow the segmented planes of the walls. A permanent 30m ladder adjacent to each window not only allows for cleaning the glass but also provides a support for speakers, light fixtures, and signage. It's rare to see a building in which even fire extinguisher signs have been thoughtfully placed!